Drawful 2 is a game you won’t see yourself playing very often unless you have 7 other people on standby at all times. It is a game to be played at parties and gatherings, as the minimum amount of 3 people really isn’t enough. The game is really designed for 6-8 people. You may be wondering who in their right mind would spend $480 on 8 Xbox One controllers just to play some small party game. That’s not the case. An Xbox One controller is only needed to actually start the game, as any device that has an internet connection and a working browser can easily start playing by entering a room code at Jackbox.tv. It’s actually quite amazing how quick and snappy it is. If I hit “send” on a terrible drawing of a construction worker frozen in ice on my phone, it shows up almost instantly on my screen. Massive props to Jackbox Games for this.
The game works like Pictionary, where each person is given a secret word or title that they must draw to the best of their ability. In Drawful 2, each player is given two colors that are theirs for the rest of the game, they can use their finger on a mobile device or their mouse on desktop to draw their image. There is a catch, you can’t erase anything that you’ve drawn. While this isn’t something bad, it does add a challenge. After everyone is done drawing, one drawing is shown on the screen, and everybody has 30 or so seconds to write down what they think the drawing is. Once guessing time is over, all of the guesses are listed on screen and each player must choose from that list what they think the drawing is really of, they can also award bonus likes to whatever entry they want, minus their own. If your guess was selected or liked by others, you receive points which contribute to your score. If you selected the actual title as the best guess, you’re awarded the drawer’s points. This whole process is then repeated for each drawing until there are no more drawings to guess. Next, everyone is prompted to draw another title and everything is done again. At the end of the game, the top scorer wins and you are given the option to play with the same people or start a new game.
What if you don’t have a lot of people at home to play with? Drawful 2 has you covered. This game and other titles from Jackbox Games are very popular among Twitch streamers. This is because it is a nice and easy way to have fun with fans as you can just live stream the screen so everybody can see what’s going on. There is also a feature to help people with more than 7 friends or fans to play with. There is an “audience” feature where extra players can still enter in the game but they can only give people “likes” which amount to points. As far as I know, you can have an infinite amount of audience members.
This system works very well with Drawful 2. While the title choices are random, they aren’t all too fun to draw or guess. However, Drawful 2 has a solution for this. With the “Make Your Own” tool, you can log into the room with your device and either create a brand new set of prompts. This makes Drawful 2 so much better as you can make a set for each group of friends that you have, maybe even throw a couple inside jokes into the mix. This feature adds a whole new level of personalization never before seen to the table, as this is the first time Jackbox Games has supported user-generated content. Finally, we have one more strength, the music. Drawful 2’s perky elevator menu music, as well as the fun action music, heard throughout the game adds a lot to the fun atmosphere that the game creates. The game’s sound effects really add to the fun. From farting to rips to pops to burps, Jackbox Games really strives to create a lively and fun environment for everybody playing.
Summary
Drawful 2 is a fun and quirky little party game, designed for you and as many other people as you’d like to have loads of fun with. The game creates a lively environment for everybody playing, from encouraging bad drawings to somewhat tense moments when you wait to see if your answer was correct, Drawful 2 has a lot to offer. Not only can you play on the couch with as many people as you’d like, but you can stream it live to your fans using Jackbox Games Services. The game costs just $10, making it an extremely good deal. All in all, Drawful 2 is a fun party game with zero issues that I would highly recommend as an excellent addition to your games library.
Ali is a games journalist, Mobile and Tech Reporter at Wccftech. They contributed 51 articles to ICXM between 2015–2016, focused on game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: covers mobile hardware, telecoms, and consumer-tech news for Wccftech.